


(i'm the one) who loves you lately

by littlesnowpea



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Character Death, First Christmas, Grief/Mourning, I'm Sorry, M/M, i don't know why i did this either, i'm about to ruin your whole holiday, it's not the length it's what i do with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:13:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21908749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlesnowpea/pseuds/littlesnowpea
Summary: Patrick is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past.This is not an unusual occurrence.
Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 14
Kudos: 45
Collections: Have Yourself Some Merry Little Peterick 2019





	(i'm the one) who loves you lately

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glitterandrocketfuel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterandrocketfuel/gifts).



> for aunt glitter, destroyer of fruit flies and supporter of everything i do. i'm sorry for the worst christmas gift ever.

**Christmas Present**

There was an interesting thing that happened once it began snowing, Patrick thought offhandedly, standing at his window and staring out at the mostly-empty street. It was dark, sun long gone down, shrouding the city in the early darkness of winter. It kind of created this blanket of silence, of peace and tranquility that would have put Patrick in a kind of relaxed, calm state of mind had the calendar not stared him in the face, reminding him what time of year it was. 

Christmas. Never Patrick’s favorite holiday, not by a long shot, but any holiday that resulted in more time he got to spend with Pete was a pretty good holiday to Patrick. There was holding hands and sharing cocoa and kissing under the mistletoe for three blissful years before—

Well. Before. 

Now Christmas was dark and gloomy, the snow that was once so beautiful now more suffocating than anything else. Patrick thought about moving someplace he never had to see the snow again at least once a week, but that wouldn’t really help. There was still an ache, a hole directly in the center of his chest that would not be filled by moving to the beach in California or the desert in Nevada. 

In fact, every inch he put between himself and Chicago would likely make the hole worse, not better, because every inch would remind him that this new existence was real, that this new life was all he had to look forward to. 

His hands shook and he shoved them in his sweatshirt pocket. His breathing fogged up the glass as he continued to stare out the window, five stories up, street empty. Across from his building, the shops had bright, twinkly lights in their windows, along with assorted hanging snowflakes, some lit up as well, and yards and yards of garland, all serving as reminders to Patrick that it had been a year. 

A whole year. It felt like forever and like no time at all, all at once. Like Patrick laid down, closed his eyes, and woke up a year later, but had nightmares the entire time he slept. 

He barely slept, now. He guessed it was just a side effect. 

\-----

**Christmas Past**

“Our tree is a little phallic,” Pete said. Patrick looked up from his book to consider it. 

Phallic was a bit of a stretch--maybe if you squinted and tilted your head, but Patrick couldn’t imagine most people going to those lengths to look at a stunted fake tree in a shitty one-room apartment in Chicago on Christmas Eve. He looked over at Pete with a raised eyebrow. 

“It does,” Pete insisted, able to read Patrick’s mind after a year of being together. “It has _a head_.”

“It’s like, ten years old,” Patrick pointed out. “We found it in a crushed box at Goodwill. It’s not going to be perfect.”

“Hey!” Pete objected. “I didn’t say it had to be perfect. I kind of like our Penis Tree.”

“Don’t call it that,” Patrick objected. “Please, please don’t call it that.”

“It’s too late,” Pete informed him. “The deed is done.”

“You’ve ruined our first Christmas,” Patrick said and rolled his eyes as Pete tried to kiss him but ended up missing his lips entirely and landing the kiss somewhere in the vicinity of his left eyebrow. 

“I’m deeply sorry,” Pete said. “Maybe next year one of us will have a job that pays more than minimum wage and we can get a real tree.”

“Dream on,” Patrick said mildly. “Once you find a well paying job that will hire two twenty year olds who dropped out of college, let me know. But I’m not sure it exists.”

“Capitalism is a curse,” Pete said. “Also I’m twenty four.”

“Merry Christmas Grandpa,” Patrick replied. Pete groaned and they both fell quiet. The lights Pete had wrapped around their sad Penis Tree-- _god damn it_ \--twinkled, changing colors every so often. Patrick could see the reflection in their dirty window, nine floors up from the Chicago streets, where snow was blanketing the city in white and silence. 

It felt a little bit like Patrick and Pete were the only ones left on Earth, or at least in Chicago. Nobody was braving the cold and snow, nobody was fighting to get to work or to get to the store or anything. The streets were abandoned, the snow fresh and pristine, uninterrupted by tire tracks or footprints or the snow plow. 

Patrick turned his face into Pete’s gentle hand, meeting his eyes with a soft grin. Pete thumbed over Patrick’s lips and leaned in, pressing a gentle, chaste kiss there and pulling back with impossible softness in his expression. 

“You didn’t really ruin Christmas,” Patrick whispered. Pete grinned.

“Oh good,” he said. “I don’t know what I would do with myself if I really ruined Christmas.”

“The tragedy,” Patrick agreed, and kissed Pete deeper, letting his book fall out of his hands to the carpet with a soft thud. He let Pete pull him up by the hips to straddle Pete’s lap, grinning into the kiss as he felt Pete’s cold hands worm their way under his sweatshirt and shirt. 

“Your true intentions become clear,” he said, attempting to sound lofty and all-knowing but mostly sounding breathless and giggly. Pete hummed in assent, biting down the curve of Patrick’s jaw, worrying marks into his skin. Patrick huffed a laugh as Pete’s fingers dug in a little to his hips and tangled a hand in Pete’s hair, guiding him back up for another kiss. 

“Are we going to have sex on our couch in front of our Penis Tree?” Pete asked, mumbling the question into Patrick’s lips. 

“Just for that, we’re not having sex,” Patrick said, and betrayed his point by taking off his sweatshirt and shirt in one go. Pete smirked, lifting his arms obediently for Patrick to peel his shirt off, too, and run greedy hands down the tanned skin of his ribs. 

\-----

**Christmas Present**

With a sigh, Patrick stepped away from the window, reaching up and shutting the curtains as he did, throwing his apartment back into semi-darkness, broken only by the fire he had going in the fireplace and one lamp. The rest was dark and in shadow, which Patrick preferred. He could hardly bear looking at the photos on the walls but he also couldn’t bear taking them down, just going through life pretending they weren’t there, just one in a lengthy chain of unhealthy choices he’d been making. 

A log shifted in the fireplace, making the fire crackle and spark a bit. Patrick sank onto the rug in front of the fireplace, moving the thousand yard stare from his window to the fire, instead. His watch beeped--officially Christmas. He had to pretend to be okay in just 12 hours, had to go to his mom’s and pretend like he was recovering emotionally, pretend like he was doing well, put on a show for his mom and his sisters and his aunts and his uncles and everyone who would be giving him side-eyes when they thought he couldn’t see.

He already dreaded it. 

He sighed again, loud in the quiet room, over the sound of the fireplace and the constant churning of his thoughts. He should go check on everything today, make sure snow hadn’t piled up, not that it mattered at all, except for how it very much mattered to him. He let his eyes slip closed, resting his chin on his hand which was propped up by his elbow on his thigh, and his whole body ached. 

Flu or life? That was an excellent question. 

Someone knocked at the door. 

“Coming,” Patrick said, tired and resigned, and stood, stretching until his back cracked and hoping he didn’t look like death warmed over. He walked towards the door, reaching out to drag his fingers down the coat on the coat rack that hadn’t moved for a year, that hadn’t moved since it had been worn last, this time last year. It was his favorite coat, his and Patrick’s both, and Patrick remembered buying it for him, remembered him opening it up, the lights on their first Christmas tree bright in the reflection of his eyes, how good he’d looked when he’d proudly worn it nearly every day last winter.

His heart hurt so much for a moment that he stopped in his tracks, just taking several deep breaths and trying to push past it, trying to push it aside so it wouldn’t be front and center when he’d answered the door. He was moving on. He _promised_ he was moving on, promised last Valentine’s Day, and on Easter, and on his birthday and on _his_ birthday and on Halloween. He’d promised he was okay, he was moving on, and Patrick didn’t want to be seen as a liar. 

\----

**Christmas Past**

Pete really was the most beautiful person Patrick had ever seen. He almost seemed to glow from the inside out, that fire that burned in him, the one that kept going and going no matter what, it lit him up and Patrick was powerless to resist its gravity, like a moth drawn to the light. He made no such conclusions about his own body, though he knew Pete had other opinions, and just counted himself lucky that Pete had stuck by him for a whole year, as annoying as Patrick could be and all.

The lights on the Not-A-Penis-Tree were soft, casting Pete in a warm glow, and the light from the single lamp Patrick had had on made it look like there was a halo around Pete’s head, which only made sense to Patrick. After all, Pete was an angel, _his_ angel, his very own Christmas miracle come to life and maybe it was a little overdramatic to say so, but it was nearly midnight on Christmas Eve and Patrick thought he’d earned the right to be a little overdramatic. 

Especially since he felt like he didn’t say it nearly enough. Not nearly as much as Pete laid complements onto him. He was severely deficient in the ‘complement your boyfriend back’ category, was what he was getting at, and it was perhaps time to make up for that, big time. 

“You’re so hot,” he blurted out, the opposite of smooth and suave and sexy. Pete laughed breathlessly into Patrick’s collarbone and Patrick flushed horribly and opened his mouth to say something-- _anything_ \--but nothing came. Pete grabbed Patrick’s chin and kissed him softly, leaning back to look at him with an expression best described as ‘fond’. 

“You,” Pete said, grinning softly. “Are wearing too many clothes.”

“It’s winter,” Patrick argued, cheeks still hot, even as he slid off Pete’s lap and began tugging on his admittedly ratty pajama bottoms--the height of sexy, he was sure of it--watching Pete pop the button on his jeans with a dry mouth. Pete managed to wiggle out of his frankly obscenely tight jeans, winking at Patrick as his dick sprung free, flushed dark, wet on the tip, and really, could you blame Patrick for going speechless at the sight of it?

“You were saying?” Pete said mildly, and Patrick shook himself realizing he was still standing there, pajama pants around his ankles, staring at his boyfriend’s cock like he’d never seen it before in his life.

“It’s winter,” Patrick repeated. “I’m expected to wear a lot of clothes. You can get frostbite if you’re not covered up.”

“Oh no,” Pete said, smirking. Patrick felt his cheeks heat up a little more, along with the tips of his ears. He couldn’t help it. He licked his lips, noticing with triumphant satisfaction how Pete’s gaze dropped to them immediately. He swallowed. 

“Yeah,” he said, sounding remarkably unaffected and even _cool_ , what the hell. “We better make sure your cock is warm enough.”

Patrick dropped to his knees. Pete made a strangled sound, hands reaching for Patrick’s hair before he clearly thought better of it. Patrick didn’t even have to give him a dirty look. See, Pete _could_ learn. Patrick fully believed in Christmas miracles. 

\-----

**Christmas Present**

“I knew you’d come,” Patrick whispered as he opened the door. Tears pricked his eyes and he blinked them back, swallowing past the lump in his throat and trying his hardest to stay stoic and calm. He wanted to reach out, wanted to touch, but he knew he couldn’t. 

“Every holiday,” Pete said, and his voice was echoey and disembodied but it was so close to the voice Patrick had been missing for a year he almost didn’t care. He was shaking a little with the effort of not bursting into tears right then and there, not sobbing and begging him to come back because Patrick knew he couldn’t, he knew there was no way, he knew this was probably not even real but he wanted it so bad. 

Pete was still wearing his wedding band and Patrick touched his own almost without thinking about it. He swallowed, looked up into Pete’s hollow brown eyes, and wanted to kiss him. 

“I guess this makes you my own personal Ghost of Christmas Past,” he said, voice cracking. Pete didn’t grin, just tilted his head and looked Patrick over with those knowing eyes. “I’m trying.”

“I know you are,” Pete said. It sounded like he meant it, too. “I know. And it’s only been a year.”

“Only,” Patrick whispered. Pete looked sad. “I miss you.”

“You know I miss you, too,” Pete said quietly. Patrick grit his teeth and nodded, eyes damp, throat thick. He shook with the effort of not reaching out to touch Pete. It wasn’t allowed, no matter how much Patrick wanted and wanted and wanted. 

Pete looked just like he had last time Patrick had seen him, laughing and twirling his keys around his finger, kissing Patrick goodbye despite Patrick’s protests about the weather and whatever else he’d whined about that night. He’d watched Pete go, boots crunching in snow, not dressed for the weather, not thinking about the ice. 

He’d watched Pete climb into his stupid little sports car that Patrick complained and complained and complained about, watched him drive off for some coffee because Patrick had complained that they were out and he wouldn’t have coffee in the morning. 

Pete had never come back. 

\----

**Christmas Past**

Patrick wasn’t, like, _excellent_ at deepthroating or anything, but Pete had also never complained, so Patrick figured he wasn’t terrible either. He slid his hands up Pete’s thighs as he very unsexily shuffled forward on his knees in order to mouth around the head of Pete’s cock. Pete let out a hissed breath through clenched teeth as Patrick dragged his tongue up the side of Pete’s cock, hands tightening in the couch cushions and Patrick decided _fine_ , he’d stop teasing. 

Patrick took Pete into his mouth fully and Pete made a noise that sounded like he’d been shot. His hips shifted and Patrick pressed down firmly on his thighs because he was very much not in the mood to get his throat fucked raw right now. Or ever, except for very special occasions or when he’d pissed Pete off. You know, important things. 

Patrick wasn’t a fan of the slick, wet noises he made sucking Pete’s cock, but Pete was. He was screwing his face up in concentration, grip still tight in the couch cushions, and when Patrick pulled back enough to tongue at his slit, his hips jerked. 

“Fuck,” Pete panted. “Sorry, sorry.”

Patrick hummed, mouth still around Pete’s cock, and Pete groaned, head rolling back to rest on the back of the couch. His hands flexed and, with what looked like enormous effort, he lifted his head to look down at Patrick. 

“Oh God,” he said desperately. “You are so fucking hot.”

There were a number of smooth, suave things Patrick would have _liked_ to say to that but his traitor of a face turned bright red instead and he lunged forward to kiss Pete a little messily. Pete laughed into the kiss, which Patrick felt vaguely like he should feel offended by, but just then Pete’s hand found Patrick’s own cock and squeezed, making Patrick’s hips jerk and his breathing catch. 

\-----

**Christmas Present**

“It’s not your fault,” Pete said. Patrick almost lost it right there, almost fell to the ground in the doorway of what used to be _their_ apartment, almost curled in a ball and began sobbing, because that right there, that was the crux of the issue, wasn’t it? Trust Pete to know what had always been on Patrick’s mind since the hospital called him about his husband. 

Patrick grabbed the doorframe for support and Pete made an aborted move as if he was reaching for Patrick before he was reminded of the rules. Patrick hated the rules. He looked up into Pete’s soft but serious face and tried to take a deep breath. 

“So you tell me,” he finally managed to say, voice surprisingly even. He cleared his throat and stood back up straight. It took everything in him to do so. His hair, growing longer than he usually allowed, flopped limply into his eyes and he brushed it back with a sigh. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be over you, you know.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Pete said quietly. “Not right away, anyway.”

“Right away,” Patrick scoffed, but there was little heat behind it. His shoulders slumped and he crossed his arms defensively, like he was holding up a shield to prevent Pete from seeing the hole in his heart. Although he was pretty sure the hole in his heart was too big to hide anymore. It was Pete-sized, unable to be filled, and the longer Patrick went without Pete, the more it hurt. 

“Someday,” Pete said, his voice haunting. He gave Patrick the ghost of a smile and Patrick _ached_. “You know I’m not coming back.”

“Don’t remind me,” Patrick said hoarsely, shutting his eyes for a long moment. He fought with himself over the tears that wanted to fall and the daydream that wanted to begin, about their wedding, about their life. “You weren’t supposed to leave me.”

“I know,” Pete said, open and raw. “I know, and I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Patrick echoed. His voice sounded tiny and distant. He swayed where he stood. “I love you.”

\-----

**Christmas Past**

Patrick moaned in encouragement, pressing his lips to Pete’s but not doing much else, just panting a little and trying not to squirm as Pete developed a decent rhythm. Pete buried his face into Patrick’s neck, biting a little as he upped the pace, making Patrick race quickly towards losing the battle of not squirming all over Pete’s lap. Patrick whined, working a hand in between them to stroke Pete off, too, quickly, twisting his wrist every so often like he knew Pete liked, and Pete made a strangled sound that shouldn’t have been as hot as it was and came, striping up Patrick’s stomach, hand stilling for a moment on Patrick’s cock. 

Patrick was nice and gave him approximately three seconds of recovery before he whined pointedly, pushing his hips up, and Pete huffed out a tired but fond laugh and obliged him, bringing Patrick off, too, making Patrick all but melt over Pete, head resting on his shoulder, a contented smile on his face. 

“You know,” Patrick said quietly, after a few moments of silence. “You really are hot.”

“I hope so,” Pete said. “Otherwise, what else do I offer? You sure aren’t with me for my personality.”

“I like your personality,” Patrick said mildly, then licked up Pete’s slightly sweaty neck. “But that dick sure is a bonus.”

“You stole that from Etsy,” Pete said, but he was laughing, and his arms circled around Patrick as he did, and Patrick looked down at him with a grin on his face, hoping for many, many more Christmases with his one and only. 

\-----

**Christmas Present**

“I love you, too,” Pete said. There was a pause before Pete pressed on. “I know it’s been hard.”

“That’s a bit of an understatement,” Patrick said unhappily. “It’s been more than hard. It’s been--it’s been _impossible_.”

“I know,” Pete said again, and Patrick couldn’t look at him. He just couldn’t. Because it had been a year but it felt like it had happened yesterday and Patrick couldn’t imagine ever feeling better, not for one second, not for an instant. Pete cleared his throat. “It’s the last time.”

Patrick choked, tearing his eyes away from the floor to look at Pete desperately, a lump of tears thick in his throat, fingers digging into his arms where he still had them firmly crossed over his chest. He shook his head uselessly and Pete sighed. 

“Please,” Patrick begged, before Pete could say anything. He shook his head again when Pete opened his mouth and swallowed against the onslaught of sobs that wanted to erupt from his chest. The line of his back was so tense it hurt, and his shoulders were shaking under the weight of his grief. “Please don’t tell me that.”

“I don’t want you hurting when I don’t show up,” Pete said. His eyes were dark and serious and Patrick wanted to sink down into the floor, to keep sinking until he didn’t have to think anymore. “Patrick. I wish I didn’t have to--I wish I could stay here forever. With you. I love you.”

“I can’t live without you,” Patrick whispered, heart aching with every word. Pete shook his head. 

“You have,” he argued. “For a year, you have, and you can keep going.”

“I don’t _want_ to,” Patrick protested. “I can’t.”

“Darling,” Pete whispered, and a tear fought its way down Patrick’s cheek despite his best effort. He wiped it away quickly, sniffing and swallowing hard, hands shaking, body shaking. The last--how could this be the last? How could God--the Universe-- _whoever_ be this cruel? Was it not enough that they took Pete away to begin with? 

“Don’t leave,” Patrick begged. “Please don’t leave again.”

“If I could, I would stay,” Pete said urgently. “I would stay forever, for as long as I could, but I can’t. It’ll be okay, Patrick. Just remember how much I love you.”

“I’ll never stop loving you,” Patrick said, through choked back tears. His grip on the door frame was so tight it almost hurt, not that he had even a second to spare to pay attention to anything but Pete, in front of him, for the last time ever. “I can _never_ stop loving you.”

“You never have to,” Pete said. “You can love me for the rest of your life, but you have to go live that life. You have so much ahead of you and I’m not saying you should forget all about me or anything, but living in this grief--there’s more to life. You’re only twenty nine, Patrick. I don’t want you living in the past forever.”

“I want you back,” Patrick said, voice cracking. He was still shaking. “Please, I just want you back.”

“I know,” Pete said, and his voice was raw and full of pain, like it was all he wanted, too. “I’m so sorry I broke your heart.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Patrick choked. Pete looked sad, expression full of remorse as he looked Patrick over like he was memorizing every inch of him, like he didn’t want to forget a single detail so he was committing Patrick to memory, and somehow, that thought hurt worse than anything else tonight. If Pete was never going to see Patrick again, either--

“It’s time, Patrick,” Pete said, and fuck, his voice even cracked. Patrick shook his head in denial but couldn’t speak. Words wouldn’t form in his mouth, his throat was paralyzed. “Thank you for being the best husband in the world. I couldn’t have asked for anyone better than you, Patrick. I’ll--I’ll be seeing you, okay? Later?”

“Later?” Patrick choked out. “I--”

“I love you, Patrick,” Pete whispered, and, fuck, no, he was fading, he was becoming blurrier and blurrier and fading away right in front of Patrick’s eyes, and Patrick was never going to see him again, he was going to be _gone_ , really and truly gone, and Patrick felt empty. He felt hollow. He felt numb.

“I love you too, Pete,” he whispered, reaching out uselessly as he watched Pete disappear. “I will always love you.”

Pete vanished and Patrick stood in his doorway for several minutes, staring at the spot Pete was in and willing him to come back, to _please_ come back, to not leave him. The spot of carpet in the hallway where Pete was stayed unchanging, immovable, the same. There wasn’t a trace of anything that indicated Pete stood there at all, and Patrick closed his eyes against fresh tears. 

He took a step back. 

He closed the door. 

\----

**Christmas Future**

“Hi, Mr. Stump,” the fan said, clutching _Spell_ in her hand and looking at Patrick with the same wide, star-struck eyes Patrick had grown used to. He gave her a smile and took the book, flipping it open and grabbing a Sharpie from the table. 

“What’s your name?” he asked, and the fan’s eyes, if possible, got even wider. 

“Maria,” she said. “This is my favorite book in the entire world. I know I’m, like, a little young and all, but you write so beautifully and I couldn’t put it down!”

“Well, thank you very much,” he said, scrawling his signature and closing the book. “Happy Holidays.”

Maria took the book back with a bright grin and all but stumbled away. Patrick watched her go for a minute, fond, before turning his attention back to the line. He’d been here a couple hours and the fans just kept coming. His manager told him that that was what he got for being a New York Times bestselling author, and that he should get used to it, but it was still surreal. This little pet project he did in his downtime, taking off like that? 

Patrick was pretty sure, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he had a little otherworldly help for that. 

“Hello,” he said to the next fan. “What’s your name?”

The next hour flew by, with Patrick’s face beginning to hurt from smiling so much, and his hand cramping up from endless autographs, and by the time the library had closed down and Patrick was done, he was exhausted and was ready to go home and crawl into bed so he’d be functional for the Christmas Eve dinner at his mom’s house. 

“How was it, champ?” Joe, his manager asked, curly hair back in a bun, clipboard in hand. “You look beat.”

“I’m thirty one, my bedtime should be _whenever the fuck I want to sleep_ and not, like, ten PM,” Patrick said, rubbing his eyes tiredly before facing the hovering librarians. “But it was wonderful, thank you all for hosting it.”

“It’s our pleasure, Mr. Stump!” one of the librarians said instantly. “It was an honor, really, I hope it wasn’t too overwhelming.”

Joe clapped a hand on Patrick’s shoulder and gave him a teasing look. 

“Nah,” Joe said. “He’s just not used to fame. He’ll be better equipped to handle it for his next bestseller.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Patrick said, and the librarians laughed. Joe smacked Patrick’s shoulder again before stepping away, pulling out his phone as he did. 

“Dude, you want dinner?” he asked, presumably at Patrick although he didn’t look up from his phone. 

“About time you offered me food,” Patrick frowned. “I’m starving here. What kind of manager are you?”

“Not a good one,” Joe said, finally looking up and throwing a smirk in Patrick’s direction. “Alright, I’ll go figure out where we should eat if you want to finish wrapping up here. I think the librarians want their copies signed.”

“No, it’s okay,” one of them said instantly, eyes wide. “I mean, you’ve done so much and we don’t want--”

“Of course I can sign them,” Patrick said with a gentle, genuine smile. “It still is amazing to me that you have my book in the library.”

“These are actually our personal copies,” another librarian admitted, cheeks a little pink. “The library copies can’t stay on the shelf longer than a few minutes, if they make it back to the shelf at all.”

“That’s crazy,” Patrick said, unable to keep from grinning. “If you had asked me just last year if this was possible, I would have laughed you out of the room.”

He picked up his Sharpie again and signed each of the three librarian’s books, writing _thank you!_ alongside his autograph. He handed the last one back, making eye contact with her, and could instantly tell she had a question. 

“Go ahead,” he said, and she gave a little nervous laugh, taking her book and sighing. 

“I know it’s weird,” she said. Patrick doubted it, but let her continue. “But I really like looking at the dedications page of a book and finding out the stories behind them, if I can. And I was just wondering--and you don’t have to answer, and I’m sorry if I’m overstepping--but your book is dedicated _To: Pete_ and I was wondering who Pete is?”

She punctuated the question by opening _Spell_ to the dedications page so Patrick could see it for himself, as if he’d forgotten. Those two little words, in bold cursive, meant so much to him. It had been four years since he’d lost Pete. Four Christmases without him, four birthdays without him, four empty anniversaries. And there was a part of Patrick that still felt empty and broken and raw over it, but that part was a lot smaller than it had been. Pete was right. He did have a lot of life to live. 

And he would never stop loving Pete, that much was true, God knew if or when he’d ever date again, but every holiday was a little easier, every time he mentioned Pete’s name it hurt a little less, and he knew someday he’d be able to talk about Pete for hours without losing his mind. 

He smiled a little, touched the words, and looked up at the librarian. 

“Pete was my husband,” he said, and his voice was clear, it didn’t crack, tears didn’t well in his eyes. “He died four years ago.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the librarian said, eyes wide, a hand pressed to her mouth. “I shouldn’t have asked, I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Patrick said, trying his best to smile encouragingly at her. He swallowed, and looked down at the dedication. “I knew people would ask. It’s okay. But yes, he passed away and I think of him every day, and it only made sense to dedicate this to him. You know?”

“I do,” the librarian said, and Patrick didn’t know if she was just politely lying or if she really did understand, but he nodded anyway, flashed her another smile. 

“Thank you for hosting me,” he said, standing up from the table and picking up his coat. “It was very fun and I am honored to be in a library. Merry Christmas, everyone.”

A chorus of _Merry Christmas_ ’s answered him and Patrick gave the room at large one final genuine smile before heading for the lobby, where Joe was still glued to his phone. 

“Hey,” he said, and Joe looked up. “Food?”

“We’ve got lots of options,” Joe said. “What does the New York Times bestselling author want?”

Patrick considered. He straightened his scarf and buttoned his coat and glanced behind him, where the librarians were busy taking down the table. 

“It’s Christmas, pretty much,” he said finally, looking back at Joe. “Why don’t you decide?”

“It’s my lucky day,” Joe replied, sticking his phone in his pocket. “Let’s go.”

He headed straight for the door and Patrick laughed a little, shaking his head as he followed. It was bitter cold outside, like a proper Chicago winter night, and, out of habit, he glanced up, wondering which of the millions of stars was Pete. 

It was his fourth Christmas without him and it still hurt a little, but every day got easier. Thinking about Pete constantly hadn’t brought him back; it made sense to focus on other things. After a glance behind him again and above him as well, he half jogged to catch up to Joe for their post book signing, pre Christmas dinner. 

\----

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to yell at me in the comments and/or at smalltalktorture.tumblr.com.


End file.
